


and they never were

by neon_lights21



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Crying, Gen, Huang Ren Jun-centric, Insecurity, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 21:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20181253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neon_lights21/pseuds/neon_lights21
Summary: Jaemin, Jaemin, Jaemin. It was all about Jaemin. Out of everyone in the world, he just had to like Jaemin. It was Jaemin’s charm, luring people in and making them like him without realizing until they were in too deep, just like he had done to Renjun.Jaemin would never love him back, not when he had Jeno.





	and they never were

For most of his life, Renjun had considered himself weird for not feeling any particular feeling, or _attraction_, towards people. Even when all of his friends would talk about their celebrity crushes and gushing over how good the girls from the other class looked, he had nothing to offer to the conversation. He thought he was weird, or just didn’t care about people to admire them.

Crushes were another silly thing he didn’t understand. The whole concept of falling for someone so amazing and perfect that you would almost never have a chance to be with was strange. Why would someone even waste their time liking someone for a few weeks and agonizing over it so much? It was strange and illogical, yet everyone around him seemed to treat it as a normal life experience of teenagers.

(He would later understand it all.)

He just nodded and made some jokes when Donghyuck talked about the new girl in their class and how cute she was. He obviously liked her and talked about her for hours when they were supposed to be studying, and Renjun was starting to get annoyed.

“Why don’t you just tell her that you like her?” he asked, throwing his pencil on the desk after realizing that he had been reading the same paragraph for the past ten minutes without understanding a word of it.

“I don’t know if she likes me though,” Donghyuck said from where he was lying on Renjun’s bed.

“What if she does?” Renjun turned around to glare at Donghyuck. “Just tell her. The worst thing that could happen is her politely friendzoning you.”

“That’s not how it works,” Donghyuck said, giving him a weird look.

“Oh please enlighten me then.” Renjun rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he sighed, “you just gotta know when someone likes you, you know?”

“No, actually, I don’t fucking know.”

“There’s no need to be salty about it,” Donghyuck laughed, “you’ll understand when you have a crush yourself. The push and pull and is part of the fun of having a crush.”

“So you like suffering and making me suffer every day by making me listen to you?”

“Shut up. You’ve never even had a crush in all the years I’ve known you.”

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO STARTED TALKING ABOUT CRUSHES.”

***

He loved spending time with Jeno and Jaemin. They seemed to be attached at the hips, so they came in like a package deal whenever he wanted to hang out. Jeno seemed like the calm type, but he became very excited when he talked about the things he was passionate about. Jaemin was always level headed and the dependable type of friend, but he had his moments when one of them made conversations weird. Then he would just go on a tangent, his brain to mouth filter disappearing completely. It was endearing, and Renjun could effortlessly laugh at his stupid jokes. Jaemin was always so warm and cute without even trying that Renjun didn’t realize he had started falling in the black hole surrounding Jaemin until he saw them kissing.

It was another boring day at school. They were in PE, pretending to warm up in the chilly gym where the heating never seemed to work while their teacher dozed off in his chair, shouting at them to do the exercises properly whenever his neck cramps woke him up. Renjun stopped running when their teacher closed his eyes again, and instead he started walking towards Jeno and Jaemin to get escape from Donghyuck’s constant whining.

“I have eleven assignments to turn in next week. It’s not fair. This is how the capitalist society is making us study everything there is to know yet we are all so ignorant on what is more important-”

“Oh my god just shut up,” Renjun sighed, trying to get his arm out of Donghyuck’s iron grip. “You had months to work on all of them and don’t drag me in your philosophical discourses about what you think the problems of our society are.”

It was all normal. Jeno and Jaemin seemed to be in their own world, just like always. With each step Renjun took towards them, they got closer and closer to each other, until their lips were touching. Renjun stopped in his tracks. The world seemed to stop, just like Jeno’s lips against Jaemin’s. Something in Renjun’s stomach sank, taking all of his being with it and just going down, down, down. 

He didn’t understand at first. Of course he was surprised that they were kissing. They hadn’t really been obvious about anything that had been going on between them. But then again Renjun was the most oblivious person to these types of things, so there was no surprise that it caught him off guard.

He didn’t understand why it him feel like someone was twisting a knife right in the middle of his chest, though.

Suddenly everything made sense to him. How he always wanted to be close to Jaemin; how he always wanted to hug him, or hold his hand, or just touch shoulders with him even though he wasn’t an overly affectionate person. It made sense how Jaemin’s laugh seemed to cleanse his soul when he was having a bad day. It made sense now. He knew how soft Jaemin’s cheeks were. He had traced his thumb over them so many times that he would know it was Jaemin even if he were to become blind. And Jaemin had reciprocated all of the touches and smiles initiated by him. But that was just how he was. Unlike Renjun, Jaemin was open about his love, be it platonic or romantic, for everyone and he wasn’t afraid to show and demand their affection.

So it was no surprise that those things meant nothing to Jaemin, but everything to Renjun.

***

He spent the next two days thinking about how he should handle the situation. It didn’t help that they were all classmates and that Renjun felt like crying every time he saw Jaemin smile to Jeno like he meant the world to him.

Jaemin would never smile at him like that. And Renjun would never blame him, because to Jaemin, he was a friend. Just a friend.

He wanted to push Jaemin away at first. Not being around him as much would help Renjun get over his feelings. But he was afraid that it would take too long, and that when he was finally ready to be around Jaemin again, he wouldn’t accept it. After all, why would Jaemin even want to be his friend after he shut him out for however long it took without an explanation? He would hurt Jaemin. It was plain selfish.

He didn’t want to lose them. Neither Jaemin nor Jeno. They were friends first and foremost, and even if he couldn’t be with Jaemin, he didn’t want to lose him as a friend. He couldn’t bring himself to distance himself from them even though it caused him so much pain.

No, Renjun could never be apart from Jaemin. He wanted to get as much of him as he could even if it hurt him. It was selfish just like pushing him away, so Renjun decided to choose the selfish option that would hurt him instead of Jaemin.

The guise of sacrificing himself for Jaemin’s wellbeing made him feel less guilty.

***

phantastic phour

Me 15:43   
hey guys i won’t join you today  
i need to study i really fucked up my previous biology test  
don’t drink on a school night btw

Donghyuck 15:43   
DON’T MAKE ME THE THIRD WHEELER YOU ASSHOLE

Me 15:44   
sorry  
it be like that sometimes i have priorities in life

Jaemin 15:45   
we’re not even that bad

Jeno 15:45   
yeah be grateful that we don’t do more in front of you :))  
stop being so dramatic

Donghyuck 15:46   
I’M NOT BEING DRAMATIC

Jaemin 15:47   
will you stop typing in all caps it’s not cute

Renjun sighed, throwing his phone on his bed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to hang out with them. In fact, it was quite the opposite. He actually wanted to seek them out and spend as much time with them -and especially Jaemin- as possible, but he was afraid of acting weird around Jaemin and Jeno and letting something about his stupid crush slip out during conversation, or worse, while they were all drunk. And he was afraid of hurting, because every time he saw them act like a couple, a piece of his heart shattered into nothingness.

He buried his face in his pillow as he tried to find something to fill the emptiness in his chest. He stayed like that for hours, until his parents called him for dinner. He didn’t have much of an appetite as he was trying to swallow down the knot in his throat with water, listening to whatever his brother was rambling about. Eating felt like a chore. 

***

“Why didn’t you come with us yesterday?” Donghyuck asked as Renjun dropped his bag next to his chair grumpily.

“I had to study.”

“Oh okay,” Donghyuck said. “Now tell me the real reason.”

“What real reason?” he snapped, grabbing the edge of his desk so tightly that his knuckles went white.

Like he wasn’t already in a bad mood.

“You can’t lie to me,” Donghyuck said, leaning towards Renjun. “I saw your biology test and you got almost all the questions right. I mean, it’s ok if you didn’t feel like hanging out but why did you lie about it?”

He should have just ignored them and told them that he fell asleep.

“It’s none of your business,” he raised his voice, lowering his head when he felt his classmates turning their heads towards him.

“Please try to keep your arguments for outside the classroom,” Mr Lee said, looking at them disapprovingly and starting the roll call.

Renjun sighed, pursing his lips and looking at his desk. He was about to apologize to Donghyuck when Jeno and Jaemin came rushing in, panting as they apologized to their teacher for being late.

“I’ll- I’ll just tell you later,” Renjun said, still not looking at Donghyuck.

“Alright. I’ll come over after school. Is that okay?”

Renjun nodded, trying to ignore the way Jeno and Jaemin whispered and giggled as they took off their coats and settled in their seats.

What the hell had he got himself into?

***

“So, what’s wrong?” Donghyuck asked once they were sitting across each other on Renjun’s bed.

“Who said anything about something being wrong?” 

“No one. I can tell by myself that there has been something bothering you for weeks.”

A moment of silence stretched between them. He didn’t feel as nervous as he thought he would

“I like Jaemin,” he said abruptly, “like, not as a friend, but like- I actually like him. I think I have a crush on him.”

It was like a train wreck. He felt like crying. All those things that he was supposed to feel before saying those words, he was feeling afterwards. Saying it outloud didn’t lift the weight on his chest. It added another one to it because not only was he admitting to liking his friend, who already had a boyfriend, but he was also indirectly admitting to being gay. Or whatever. Not straight. It’s not like he had never thought about it. In fact, the thought had crossed his mind numerous times in the previous two years, but he never had any way to confirm it so he let it slide to the back of his mind all the time. Now that he had admitted it to someone other than himself, it became real. He was afraid that he wasn’t actually gay, that he was just jumping on a bandwagon which had previously been occupied by Jeno and Jaemin only. He felt something bubble up in his chest as he fiddled with some stray thread of his blanket. It made pressure build up behind his eyes and he wasn’t about to cry in front of Donghyuck for something as childish as a crush.

“For how long?”

“Probably months. But I didn’t realize until a few weeks ago.”

“Until their kiss in PE?”

Renjun glanced up.

“So you were paying attention?”

“I’m always paying attention, even if it doesn’t look like it.”

“That’s actually scary.”

He laughed. Donghyuck always knew how to make people feel better in the most subtle ways.

***

After telling Donghyuck, he could act normal around them most of the time. It was one less person to worry about. Besides, they weren’t too touchy feely around other people. But whenever they stole a kiss at each other or the topic of their relationship came up in conversation, he averted his gaze and looked around awkwardly until the subject changed.

One time he observed Jaemin while they were talking about Jeno. He looked at Jaemin’s face carefully to see how he was reacting to adjust his own reaction accordingly. And maybe he was feeling a bit jealous. So what? Wasn’t it normal to feel jealous when your crush is shooting heart eyes at someone else? It was what everyone had told him, but nothing about that situation was normal. He didn’t realize he was staring until Jaemin turned his head to give him a weird look. Renjun gave himself a mental slap. He had vowed to himself that he wouldn’t start acting weird around Jaemin, but he had just done exactly that.

He averted his gaze, letting the conversation carry on. He destested himself for feeling jealous. He had no right to bring his toxic self anywhere near their relationship.

***

“Why are you so down today?”

Fuck. The one person who shouldn’t have noticed his weirdness had noticed it.

“The prospect of becoming an adult has finally caught up to me. It’s too real.”

Jaemin gave him a sympathetic smile and patted his shoulder.

“Don’t sweat it too much. No one actually knows what they’re doing.”

“You seem to know exactly what you’re doing.”

“I just have a more clear idea of what I want to do with my life, but I don’t know how I’m gonna do it either.”

Typical Jaemin. 

Renjun smiled softly as he wrapped his arms around him. Jaemin hugged him tightly and Renjun couldn’t help but melt in his warm embrace. It made him feel so good and warm and safe, and then it was gone.

He felt guilty that he wasn’t feeling guilty for enjoying Jaemin’s hug.

***

Sobs wracked his body as he clung to Donghyuck’s shoulders like a lifeline.

It was supposed to be a normal day with him spending the night at Donghyuck’s house. Renjun did it so much that Donghyuck’s room was practically their room.

But everything had to go awry and he just had to remind himself of what he felt for Jaemin. Every time he thought he had got over Jaemin, something would awaken those feelings again and they would hit him square in the chest. 

“I- I- I hate feeling like this.”

Why did it have to be Jaemin?

Donghyuck didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Renjun was just grateful to have someone listen to him and hold him as he cried like a child.

_ But it wasn’t Jaemin. _

He hated himself for falling for someone like Jaemin. The more he thought about him, the more he realized that he would never be in Jaemin’s league. Jaemin was a good person.

_ I’m selfish. _

He was friendly and confident.

_ I’m rude and insecure. _

Jaemin cheered people up and he was a happy person despite having his own problems.

_ I’m broody and all I can do is feel sorry for myself over small things. _

He wanted to be happy like Jaemin. He wanted to be able to smile like him, to show the world what he had to offer unapologetically.

“How could I have been so oblivious though? I’ve never even felt like- like that towards anyone and I just- I can’t- I don’t even know.” He lifted his head for a moment to see Donghyuck's face fall just as he felt his throat constrict. He looked down at his lap, trying to take in every detail of every thread of his trousers to escape the awkward silence that had fallen upon them while trying not to burst into tears once again..

“I don’t deserve to love him,” he said, trying not to make the way his voice wobbled too obvious.

“Don’t say that,” Donghyuck said softly.

Renjun shook his head. 

“No, you don’t understand,” he gulped, “someone like _ me _ can’t like someone like _ him _.”

Silence.

“Why would you say that?”

“Say what?” Renjun snapped, even though he knew exactly what Donghyuck was talking about.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Silence.

Donghyuck sighed.

“Come on, Renjun. Talk to me.” The concern in his eyes made Renjun want to vomit all over himself. 

“You know how they say you should learn to love yourself before you love someone else?” Renjun stared at Donghyuck dead in the eyes. “I don’t. I hate myself. I hate every single thing about myself. My mind is messed up and I’m selfish and needy and generally a crappy person. I know,” he stopped Donghyuck before he could protest, “I know not all of it is true, but I am all of those things even if my mind exaggerates them. What I’m feeling right now isn’t love. It’s not love. It’s never been love and it never will be. It’s just me trying to find a way to mend my insecurities.”

There was a long pause before Donghyuck spoke up.

“You do deserve to love people,” he said, taking Renjun’s hand in his. “You can’t control how you feel about Jaemin. There’s no wrong or right when it comes to your feelings. You deserve to love and be loved. And you are. I love you, your parents love you, your brother loves you, even Jaemin loves you, even if it’s not in the same way you love him.”

Donghyuck’s words twisted something in his chest, and when he looked up and saw the warmest smile on Donghyuck’s face, he couldn’t stop the tears that started streaming down his face of their own accord.

“I’m sorry,” he said between his sobs, “It’s- I don’t- there is so much that I don’t understand.”

He was afraid that he only liked the idea of Jaemin, not Jaemin as a person.

“It’s okay,” Donghyuck said, pulling him in for a hug and stroking his back with gentle hands.

Maybe it wasn’t going to be okay, but it didn’t matter in that moment.

***

Renjun wished he could choose who he would dedicate his heart to, but the world wasn’t fair and it never worked like that. Out of everyone in the world, he just had to like Jaemin. He wanted to be around Jaemin as much as possible and he found himself missing the other boy whenever they didn’t see each other for a few days. Maybe it was because they were friends. It was normal to miss your close friends. But he had never experienced anything like what he was feeling at that moment. It was like his whole body was reaching out to Jaemin, only to find nothing but empty space. Cold, empty space, but not Jaemin. Even when he was surrounded by people, he would miss Jaemin. Jaemin, who was just so perfect despite his shortcomings. Jaemin, who was always so patient with him. Jaemin, whose smile could brighten up his whole world.

Jaemin, Jaemin, Jaemin. It was all about Jaemin. It had been so foolish and illogical to like Jaemin, but he couldn’t help himself. It was Jaemin’s charm, luring people in and making them like him without realizing until they were in too deep, just like he had done to Renjun.

He thought that maybe time would heal his heart. He thought he would get over Jaemin, but his feelings grew stronger by the day. It wasn’t a simple crush anymore. In an alternate universe, Renjun would confidently admit that he was in love with a boy named Na Jaemin.

But in this universe, the boy named Na Jaemin was in a happy relationship with someone who loved him so much he would die for him. And Renjun was no one to come between them.

Jaemin would never love him back, not when he had Jeno.

He had to leave them alone and be alone by himself.

**Author's Note:**

> well i managed to format the text messages after like 10 months so that's a win  
kudos and comments are greatly appreciated and they make my day!


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